Pereira throttled and beat granddad to death because he thought he had stolen from him

And when the crop from one went missing he suspected Darren McMinn of being responsible.

Portuguese Pereira then lured qualified gym instructor McMinn, 48 to his basement flat where he denied all knowledge of the missing drugs.

However Pereira – incensed that the loss of the crop left him unable to pay for flights home for Christmas – beat him with a dining chair and stabbed him before strangling him to death with the flex of a vacuum cleaner.

His body was then covered in plastic sheeting and then wrapped in a carpet before being dumped in a reservoir – weighted down with electric transformer boxes to stop it resurfacing.

Police found McMinn’s remains three weeks later after a tip-off about his suspicious disappearance led them to Pereira and he confessed.

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He had sold the victim’s mobile phone, bicycle and gold necklace on the black market.

Today Pereira was beginning a 24-year stretch in jail after being convicted of McMinn’s murder. He pleaded guilty to preventing unlawful burial of a body but denied murder claiming he accidentally killed the victim in self defence.

Manchester Crown Court, was told the killer originally from Lisbon had moved to the UK in 2004 and got a job with housing association Bolton At Home – but secretly began growing cannabis farms in his apartment.

Trouble began in December 2015 when Pereira’s flat was burgled and a crop – which was ready for harvest – disappeared. He was told McMinn who lived in the same neighbourhood was behind the raid and during a confrontation told him: “If I find out it was you, I’ll kill you.”

The killing occurred on April 11 when McMinn was invited to Pereira’s flat for a get together.

In court Pereira claimed he was acting in self defence when the pair starting fighting in the flat.

He demonstrated to the jury how he wrapped the vacuum cleaner cord around Mr McMinn, saying it only ended up around his neck during a struggle.

McMinn was strangled to death by the flex of a vacuum cleaner after he was lured to Pereira’s basement flat

Pereira claimed when McMinn stopped moving he wrongly thought he was “pretending” and “carried on wrapping the cord around him”.

The killer said: “He caused what happened. I didn’t want to kill him, I’m not a murderer, I just wanted to restrain him. I’ve been involved in rallies for anti-war and human rights. I don’t like violence.”

But jailing him for life Judge Clement Goldstone QC told him: ”You strangled him with a length of flex, round and round his neck, and you pulled the flex, pulling tighter and tighter. You intended not simply to hurt him badly as punishment for what you thought he had done, but to kill him.

McMinn’s body was found dumped in a reservoir after being weighted down with electric transformer boxes

“Your behaviour was callous in the extreme and one which plumbed untold depths of wickedness. You trussed up his body and prepared for it to be unceremoniously dumped in a reservoir, where you hoped it would remain for ever.

Det Ch Insp Sarah Jones, of Greater Manchester Police said today: “Pereira brutally murdered Darren McMinn then attempted to cover up his crimes and evade justice by disposing of his body in a reservoir, with no thought for a family desperate to know what had happened to their loved one.

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